A Lady Under Siege (31 page)

“S
o you’re having sex with a man you can’t stand, because you’re in love with another man trapped in his head,” Jan said.

Meghan laughed into the phone. “Don’t say it like that. I can stand him now—I’m even starting to like him. Quite a lot, actually.”

“Then it must be very good sex.”

“It’s only been once, but it was great. Better than it ever was with Seth.”

“You’re making me jealous.”

“I’m even—just a sec, someone’s battering down my door.”

Her doorbell had chimed, followed immediately by an insistent pounding. The bell chimed again. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she shouted. She opened the door to the sight of Derek’s flushed, eager face, perched above a mass of messy, tousled red roses. With mock gallantry, he pronounced, “These are for my Lady fair.”

“Huh. It’s just like you,” she smiled. Into the phone she said, “Gotta go. It’s Derek, bearing gifts. I’ll call in a bit.”

“You better,”

“Promise.”

She hung up, reaching out to take the flowers he laid gently in her encircling arms. “I feel a bit like Miss Universe,” she said. “There’s got to be at least four dozen here, that’s a bit extravagant.”

“Six dozen, in fact. Don’t worry, I got them cut-rate.”

“On closer inspection they look it,” Meghan giggled.

“They’re meant to make a huge, splashy first impression, not be scrutinized for every flawed bud or droopy petal. Can I come in or what?”

“Of course. I have some news for you—there’s progress.” They went to the living room and she laid the roses in a heap on the coffee table. “Sylvanne found out her husband had been cheating on her, not just once or twice, but by the truckload. It was just sinking in when Thomas came along, and he handled it just right. He dried her tears and told her very sweetly that what they both need is to be loved.”

“
A human being’s only really being, when he is being, loved
,” Derek sang. “He picked that up from me, I’m sure.”

“Your advice for him to woo her was good. I really wish he’d marry her. Thomas, do you hear that? It’s like Daphne said, you’re in need of a wife. And Sylvanne needs someplace to anchor herself. She’s too proud to beg, but she’s allowing her heart to open, I can feel it.”

“Great.” Derek said. He gestured toward the roses on the table. “I’d tell you to put them in a vase, but you’d need a forty-five gallon drum.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“What? I’m happy, I’m happy for them. If they get together, great. I’m not as invested in them as you. You get to see them every night, but to me they’re second hand. They’re friends of friends.”

“You’re more than a friend to Thomas—he knows you better than I do.” Her face suddenly broke into a wide grin. “He did say to say thank you for the performance yesterday. He found it—how’d he put it?—I think he called it passionate and edifying.”

“Glad to hear we’re giving him an erotic education,” Derek smiled. “I think it’s time for another lesson.”

“Now? Not now.”

“Where’s Betsy?”

“She’s just down the street. She took her unicycle to the skateboard park, it’s made her a bit of a star there. The boys line up to try it out.”

“Then it’ll have to be a quickie.”

“A super-duper quickie. Even then I don’t think so.”

“When did she go?”

“Ten minutes ago. I told her to be back in an hour.”

“Fifty minutes—that’s not a quickie, that’s a slowie. A slowie with one ear cocked for the key in the door.” He took her hand, and she felt herself carried to him by some force like a river’s current. He put his arms around her and pulled her close, and felt her stretch pliantly against him. She planted kisses on his chest above the V of his collar, rubbing her nose at the base of his neck. “You smell good,” she murmured. He sat back on the couch and she lowered herself onto his lap, straddling him. She stared deeply into his eyes.

“So we have time?” he said.

“No. We’re keeping our clothes on.”

“That’s okay. A lot can be accomplished with clothes on.” He undid the top two buttons of her blouse.

“That’s far enough.”

“Perfect for a peek. I love the view.”

She put a finger under his chin and lifted his gaze from her breasts to her face. She looked deeply, searchingly into his eyes.

“Are you seeing him?”

“Uh huh. Him
and
you. Kiss me.” Murmuring happily, he leaned forward and ran his tongue down to the little hollow at the base of her neck, and undid a third button on her blouse.

A child’s voice called out, “What are you doing?”

Betsy stood in the hallway watching them, still wearing her bicycle helmet and a cyclist’s day-glow safety vest. One of her knees was skinned and bloody. Meghan, mortified, jumped from Derek’s lap, fumbling with her buttons.

“We’re just wrestling a bit. Playing around,” Derek said.

“I’m not stupid!” Betsy cried. She turned away and charged blindly down the hall to the front door. Meghan hurried after her, calling out for her to come back. She saw her race out the door and down the steps where her unicycle lay bent and broken on its side, saw her run across the sidewalk, darting between two parked cars into the street. “Betsy!” Meghan screamed. What happened next she saw in slow motion, with her heart in her throat—Betsy running blindly into traffic, a white minivan whose driver stared too distractedly at his phone, a screech of brakes like the sound of murder. Meghan thought she would die, until suddenly she saw Betsy, unhurt, still running, down the sidewalk on the far side of the street, to the corner, then out of sight.

She flew down the steps and chased after her, the soles of her bare feet slapping against the unforgiving pavement. Suddenly Derek was at her shoulder, then past her, crossing the street first, and then waiting for her to catch up at the corner. Betsy had disappeared. They hurried to the next intersection. “You go that way, I’ll go this,” he told her.

She set off alone, muttering to herself that she should never have been so careless, that she would never again let love or lust turn her into such a sloppy fool, that she was first and foremost a mother, and a mother needs to keep it together, always and forever. All the while her eyes scanned for Betsy, but there was no sign of her. Suddenly she stopped, realizing that she was moving in the opposite direction from the skateboard park, which rested on the edge of a larger park with playgrounds and playing fields that was by far the most likely place for Betsy to run to, the only sliver of green neutrality in this whole monstrous urban world of parked cars and private property. She turned and headed back that way, the way Derek had gone.

T
HE PARK WAS NEARLY
deserted. Derek found Betsy sitting on the black strap of a playground swing, swaying limply, indifferently, one foot dangling down to scrape a toe at the sand. She glanced up and saw him coming, then kept her head lowered as he sat in the next swing.

“You didn’t need to go running off,” he said. “We were just kissing each other. You kind of snuck up on us.”

Betsy said nothing.

“You need that knee cleaned up.”

She bent to examine the scrape. Without looking at him she said, “I thought grown-ups did it at night, in a bed—not daytime, downstairs where everyone can see.”

“That’s not what we were doing.”

“Why do people do it anyway? What’s the big deal?”

He was relieved that she didn’t sound angry, or hurt, but rather, annoyed. “You should be having this conversation with your mom, not me.”

“We’ve had it already. She told me how making love makes babies. And how people like to do it even when they don’t want babies.”

“Yeah, that’s right. The urge to do it is stronger than the real reason to do it. The urge to do it
becomes
the reason to do it.”

“It’s weird,” she said, shuddering a little. “I think it’s creepy.”

“People do lots of weird things that don’t make sense,” he replied. “Look, Betsy—life’s chock full of weird shit that’ll knock you for a loop, but when it does, you need to remember there are people that love you and have your back. Your mother loves you.”

“You love my mom.”

“I like her a lot. I like you too.”

“So what?”

“I don’t know so what. I’ll tell you something you probably don’t know about me. I had a kid once, and if she was alive she’d be your age, maybe a year older. So sometimes when I tell you things, they’re things I didn’t get a chance to tell her.”

Betsy was silent a moment. “Do I look like her?”

“No.”

On tiptoes she spun slowly around on the swing, winding herself up, making the chains twist and tighten above her head. Then she lifted her feet and let the chains spin her a little dizzy, one way and then the other, until they settled her to equilibrium again.

“Are you going to move into our house?”

“What? Why would I do that? Separate bedrooms, separate bathrooms, separate music collections, and yet right next door? It’s perfect as it is.”

“Here she comes,” Betsy said.

“Can I tell her we patched things up?”

“No.”

When Meghan reached them she was out of breath, and leaned on one of Derek’s chains for support. “I knew I’d find you here,” she said.

“We haven’t patched things up,” Betsy told her.

“Do you know how happy I am to see you?” Meghan asked, and then her body trembled, and she began to cry. Derek made no move to comfort her, thinking it better to leave it to Betsy. Reluctantly, the girl got off her swing and put her arms around her mother from behind.

“I’m not supposed to be hugging you,” she said. “I’m supposed to be mad at you.”

“Be anything, darling,” Meghan answered, wiping at her tears. She turned to face Betsy. “Just be what you want.”

“Derek had a daughter,” Betsy said.

“I know that.”

“Everybody knows everything but me.”

“That’s how it is when you’re ten,” Derek said. “I know it hurts, but really, it’s a blessing.”

“No it isn’t,” she said adamantly. “I want to know everything.”

45

A
s he did every morning, Thomas on waking and dressing went straightaway to Daphne’s bedchamber. He found her in good health and high spirits, looking out from her window with her maidservant Beth so as to catch a glimpse of the young men in martial training in the courtyard below. The wound in her arm where the surgeon used to bleed her daily had healed so well it no longer required a dressing, and without it there was nothing to indicate she was anything but a vibrant young girl. “Don’t you get any ideas about those boys,” he chided her. “There’s none worthy of you among that rabble. I’m going to find you a proper young nobleman, perhaps the son of a Duke or a Prince, or even a foreign King if you’re lucky.”

“But I want to marry for love, as you did with mother,” Daphne protested.

“Your mother and I married to cement a negotiated union of two families, two bloodlines,” Thomas corrected her. “We
found
love, after we were married, which is the greatest blessing God can give, and we were very grateful for it.”

“I hope
I
find love,” Daphne murmured.

“Don’t start looking for it until I’ve presented you to your husband.”

“Make sure he’s handsome, then.”

“Oh for certain he will be. Handsome, rich, strong, brave and true—I would accept nothing less for my one and only daughter. Now, not to change the subject entirely, on a matter related to marriage, I have something to discuss with you.”

With a small gesture he dismissed the maidservant. When they were alone Daphne said, “This must be very serious, or else I’m grown up now. I don’t think you’ve ever cleared the room to speak to me.”

“Yes, well. What I have to say should be kept secret for now. You are growing up, and you’ve reached an age where for certain decisions in life I might seek your council, or approval, or help. I’ve been thinking about Lady Sylvanne—”

“You want to marry her!” Daphne shrieked. Thomas winced and glanced toward the door.

“Shush, you silly girl!”

“Do you or don’t you?” She could barely contain herself.

“I do.”

“Well then go ask her!” Daphne said excitedly.

“It’s not so simple as that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, first of all, I’m not sure exactly how the question is asked, when it’s not arranged between families. And secondly, I don’t want it to come as a shock to her, I want to give her a little time to consider the question before I ask. I only want to ask if I’m certain she’ll say yes.”

“Daddy. You have your pride, is that it?”

“I suppose that’s what it is.”

“I know she’ll say yes.”

“Well I want to be sure. And that’s where you come in. I want you to find out what she thinks of the idea. Sound her out for me.”

“I’ll be like a spy,” Daphne said gaily. “I’ll be very subtle, and clever. I’ll tease the answer from her!”

“You can be direct, if you wish. But don’t try to convince her; let her express her own true wishes.”

“I’ll go to see her right now.”

S
HE INVITED
S
YLVANNE FOR
a stroll along the parapet, where far afield they could see peasants harvesting barley with scythes, and stooking the sheaves to dry. Daphne, fairly bursting with excitement, but thinking herself a very fine actress for her outward self-control, asked as casually as she could, “What do you think of love?”